The Family Foundation of Kentucky published several issues of its "Insight" publication to legislators featuring several members of the UK staff. The university's website waxed eloquent about their involvement in Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and their cutting edge scholarship in faux academic disciplines like "Queer Theory." That was the origin of the "group targets 6" headline. The Foundation never said anything bad about these individuals, didn't call for them to be fired. All it did was republish what was on UK's website. The story quoted both myself and Family Foundation executive director Kent Ostrander.

And do you think the university was appreciative of our assistance in drawing attention to the qualifications of their faculty? Apparently not. Here is a little example of the Orwellian Newspeak produced by one of its professors in response to the Family Foundation:

But Ostrander's assertions drew direct crossfire from one of UK'sbest-known faculty, Joan Callahan, a philosophy professor and former director ofgender and women's studies.

Callahan likened the foundation's effort to U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy'scontroversial ”witch-hunting“ for alleged Communists in the early 1950s.”

"It's an attempt to stigmatize and undermine these particular faculty members," Callahan said of the foundation. "It's an attempt to play on fear in the community and the state."

That's right: "witch-hunting." Now this is news to me. I was actually unaware that there were witches on the UK staff, but, hey, given all the other exotic things their faculty are into, why should I be surprised?

But the charge of McCarthyism is truly ironic. Here is a department on which there is not a single, solitary conservative, and it is accusing other people of engaging in intolerance. It seems like the only "fear" going on here is a fear that the public might find out about the hypocrisy at UK.

This is a university that blathers on about "diversity" and yet can't seem to bring itself to practice real diversity on its staff.

10 comments:

"The Family Foundation of Kentucky issued the fliers, which question the need to spend state funds supporting the six individuals, to state lawmakers who were in Frankfort last week for a special session on pension reform."

There is more than just a bit of irony here, that a Discovery Institute associate would be making assertions about some fields being "faux academic disciplines". I would argue that someone who considers Intelligent Design to be something even remotely resembling an academic discipline isn't going to be able to recognize "faux" when it does exist.

Maybe it's your association with the Discovery Institute, an organization that most definitely argues that ID is a valid field of study. Or maybe it's your favorable view of Ben Stein's movie. After all, if ID is not an academic discipline, there's no reason to take issue with the expulsion of IDists from the academy. (Hmm... maybe you're arguing that the faux disipline of ID should not be expelled, out of some sense of ... fairness? inclusiveness? academic freedom??? But then why are you apparently arguing otherwise about Gay Studies? My head is spinning, trying to sort this out.)

But hey, if you are going to disagree with the DI, Stein, and the ID vanguard, I'm happy to be corrected.